


stroke of luck

by stanyeol



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, i don't know how to write kids but haha, sehun is five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 08:49:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17097599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stanyeol/pseuds/stanyeol
Summary: junmyeon is the father of five-year-old sehun and is the happiest man on earth.(yes. those are mutually exclusive.)





	stroke of luck

**Author's Note:**

> unedited, and written in the wee hours of the morning because i’ve been dealing with baby fever for a week now.   
> combined with another of my wips making me uncover all my hidden issues, my contrib to the fic fest sounding like work, and the scary number of reality shows with children i’ve watched in the past few days, i remembered a prompt that i developed with a friend a while ago. hence: 
> 
> fuck you miss c*rd*lia. also happy xmas, ner*nn* hope u enjoy this fic uwu :”””> (yay for favoritism)
> 
> (also when will i ever get tired of writing exo as filipinos i swear i’m—. anyway: tito is filipino for “uncle,” and manang is usually a term used for older women.)

“papaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” sehun whined. he furiously (or as much as he could) shook his father awake. in return, all junmyeon did was grunt.

 

“five more minutes, hunnie,” junmyeon muttered. he was sure it wasn’t even morning yet. whatever he might have done in a past life to have a morning person for a child, he would like to express his deepest apologies. honestly, even the sun was probably still sleeping in wherever she frequented every day after she got sick of humans. why couldn’t he be the same?

 

“but papa,” sehun whined more. even with his back to his son and his head buried under a couple of pillows, junmyeon could hear his son’s long face, pouting in the dark. “i’m hungry,” he said with finality. for heaven’s sake; his son had been spending quite some time with his tito chanyeol, who probably taught him that his father, despite how strict and unwavering he might try to be at times, will never let his only son, the love of his life, the entire reason of his existence, live with his tummy left empty. inwardly, he groaned. while chanyeol could be the best babysitter, particularly because he was always willing to do it for free, he could be a terrible influence sometimes.

 

“papa,” his son started again, but the five-year-old’s voice was laced with determination—somehow, junmyeon knew that his son had no room for arguments. honestly, the boy even sounded bored, as if he was being burdened of the obligation of reminding his papa. even with his eyes closed, junmyeon could swore he could see sehun with his arms folded, brow furrowed, and his lower lip pouting.

 

he smiled into his pillow. that sehun would look terrifyingly _cute_.

 

so, he decided to give up.

 

begrudgingly, or at least, he tried to pretend to be, junmyeon sat up. at once, he could see that he was right—the sun wasn’t even up yet. upon looking at his son, he figured out that he was again, correct, as sehun was pouting, his hands placed on his waist, akimbo. he seemed angry, but god was his son _adorable._ he couldn’t help it; he laughed.

 

“papaaaaaaaa,” sehun said, sounding more annoyed. his brow furrowed deeper, and his pout got even more pronounced, resembling chanyeol’s horrid selfies when duck faces were in trend. junmyeon’s grin grew wider, as he rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes.

 

he reached out to gently pinch sehun’s pout. “yah, stop that,” he tried to say seriously, but losing to another fit of chuckles. his hand went to his son’s brow to smoothen it. “also that. seriously, sehun. do you want to go to elementary school with wrinkles?”

 

“wrinkles?” the boy asked curiously.

 

“yes. those weird lines that manang lita from next door have? you might have them if you don’t stop that,” junmyeon said matter-of-factly.

 

“you can get that from waking people up?” sehun asked.

 

“yep! and when you’re angry at your papa for not waking up when the sun hasn’t come yet.” junmyeon poked his son’s cheek, unable to help himself. he started tidying his bed too. it was the start of another day, and there was no time to waste. as much as he complained about sehun’s incompatible (for him) internal clock, his son wouldn’t be his son if he weren’t like that. it was one of the things he found the hardest to adjust to in the beginning, but now he knew he couldn’t live without it. it would be like living without sehun.

 

_ah._ the early morning always did make him a little more maudlin that usual.

 

“but tito chanyeol said that manang’s lines were rev . . . reve . . . reben . . . reven . . . revengggge?” his son said, looking somewhere at the floor, trying to figure out his way into the last word. inwardly, junmyeon preened. he always did when sehun showed initiative in learning new words, but he stopped himself from loudly praising the boy. he read about that somewhere, that kids might get discouraged if you notice everything they did too much. if that were wrong, well . . . at least he hoped sehun would understand that his father’s large smile was the encouragement he was trying to give, not what it really was—junmyeon trying to restrain himself from enveloping the boy into a large hug. chanyeol did mention before that he could be a little too much with sehun, but how could you not?

 

_god_. sehun was already five and he still had baby fever. this was why he swore he could never have more kids.

 

his brain finally caught up to what sehun said, when he noticed that the boy remained staring at him, as if expecting an answer. _oh right, reve—_ now wait a second.

 

“revenge?” junmyeon asked.

 

sehun nodded. “yeah. tito chanyeol said it was re-venge,” the boy started, the last word gliding out of his mouth more smoothly that earlier, “by God because manang always said that i was unlucky.”

 

junmyeon felt his stomach drop at that. he knew about the words thrown at him for choosing to keep sehun, but he had always thought he had kept his son away from hearing those words. almost six years ago, he made the biggest life decision he ever had, and frankly, he still had no regrets for choosing the way he did. having sehun permanently steered his life into the boy’s direction, ultimately determining it forever, and _junmyeon didn’t care_. at times, he allowed himself to imagine if having sehun under more ideal circumstances would be better, but when fronted with the idea of changing the past any way, he got scared—scared of losing his son.

 

so no—he lived with his decision, he persisted by it, and he had _absolutely no regrets_ about it. the people’s gossip be damned; he didn’t care. but letting his son hear their ugly words? that was . . . that was another thing entirely.

 

his sadness morphed into anger, the trickles of fury slowly overcoming him. it was, however, easily extinguished by the tiny hand that held his pinky. his gaze immediately set upon it. apparently, he had been shaking.

 

“papa?” sehun called out to him, for what was probably the fifth (fourth? sixth? who was even counting, anyway). this time, another emotion laced his son’s voice: worry.

 

junmyeon looked at his son. the boy had his brow furrowed slightly, compared to earlier, but his eyes were still rounded and alight with curiosity, as if waiting for his father to testify what chanyeol said for him. sometimes, it was this kind of moments that junmyeon wished would never stop—the times wherein sehun probably believed the world of his father, that junmyeon could right all wrongs and clarify all misunderstandings. like junmyeon could create worlds just for him.

 

he tried though. every day, he tries. that came with fatherhood, he supposed. but here his son was, making it seem like junmyeon was some sort of superhero, as if the mere scraps of mediocrity and imperfection that he threads together every day of his existence were perfect—were enough. (like he was enough.)

 

_yeah_. he was being more maudlin this morning—perhaps it was something about the darkness blending in with the new light of dawn, or the weird, should-be-eerie-but-actually-quite-comfortable feeling of being alone that mornings brought. it was the latter, he supposed, and the idea that with sehun, and how the boy looked up to him, he knew he wasn’t alone.

 

sehun made him feel like going against the world was doable, _easy_ , encouraging him to persist every day as _that_ was his reality. for that, junmyeon surmised, sehun was the real superhero.

 

and fuck anyone who thought the opposite of his little boy.

 

“. . . what’s uhn-luck-ee?” sehun asked again, stirring him out of his thoughts.

 

junmyeon smiled at the boy, before carrying him and settling him on his lap. he poked his son’s nose, and moved to breathe in his son’s hair. sehun never outgrew the newborn baby smell, but now smelling even more of powdered milk. he took the boy’s face in one of his hands and looked at him directly in the eye.

 

“unlucky?” junmyeon started. “it’s what you aren’t, sehunnie,” he said reassuringly. one day, or perhaps today if he were unlucky (hah) enough for sehun to not get it out of his head, he would have to explain to his son what the word meant, and why it was directed towards him. but always, _always_ , would junmyeon maintain the fact that his son wasn’t unlucky.

 

because six years ago, when seventeen-year-old junmyeon found himself with a child after being left by his boyfriend, he felt the dread and the fear, but also it—the gentle whispers of the universe that his life would be changed for the better.

 

maybe some would say that he saved sehun when he shouldn’t have, but honestly, he was the one who was saved.

 

now if that weren’t lucky, he didn’t know what was.

**Author's Note:**

> if ever i continue this it would of course be sulay so i’m tagging them because it’s 6am and i haven’t slept sjsjkddsjkfj if i don’t continue this then just imagine him being the father and leaving before sehun was born yay angst and tears


End file.
